Hailing from Meerut, 24-year-old Abhishek Sharma struggled for an opportunity to break into Mumbai’s entertainment industry. It was only after a Facebook advertisement of recruitment startup Talentrack caught his eye that he landed his first assignment —a part in a Mercedes-Benz ad.
“It was a smooth process. I had to upload my portfolio pictures and demo audition video on the platform and within four days I got notified that I had been shortlisted, and was eventually selected,” said Sharma. Digital entertainment recruitment platforms such as Talent-Next, Talentrack and actor Suniel Shetty’s F The Couch, all launched this year, aim to connect actors, screenwriters, choreographers, singers and other artists to production houses, casting agents and entertainment industry recruiters.
These startups, which use technology to screen applicants and algorithms to connect them to recruiters within minutes, have seen thousands of users sign up. For distant hopefuls like Sharma, the technology intervention promises a fair chance at being spotted by talent scouts, easing the pressure of having to network extensively in an industry where personal connections can make careers.
“Fourteen years ago, I launched a talent recruitment company called Red Carpet (offline), but that was probably not the right time for the market,” said the Mangaluru-born Shetty, known for his roles in action movies like Mohra and Border.
“With the kind of technology available at our disposal now, it’s high time that boys and girls outside of Mumbai and Delhi get opportunities to break into the entertainment industry.”
WELL RECEIVED
F The Couch, launched along with Casting Director Mukesh Chhabra in October, already has more than 10,000 signups for its one free and two paid packages. Talentrack, which began with $1 million in seed funding from Canadian venture capital firm Unigrowth, has got more than 100,000 registrations since it launched in January, with many of the users from small cities and towns. “Our algorithm matches users to specific jobs based on the features given in their portfolio.
“This takes into consideration several parameters, from an individual’s stats-—that is, their height and body type—to their work experience and demo videos,” said Manishi Singh, Chief Technology Officer at Talentrack.
“Based on select keywords in the profiles as picked by the recommendation engine, users are shown a ranking of ideal jobs. Similarly, recruiters are shown profiles ideal for the job,” Singh said. “It speeds up the process and reduces the cost of long auditions.”
ALL ABOUT MONEY
Talentrack currently has three revenue streams—a database subscription fee charged from recruiters, a premium membership fee charged from artists, and advertising revenue. Deals with recruiters and advertisers range from Rs 25,000 to Rs 7.5 lakh. “We have many proposals of much larger deal values in the market and hope to close them before the end of 2016,” said Bajpai.
Talentrack has partnered with production houses such as Peninsula Pictures and reality television music shows like The Voice.
Angel-funded TalentNext, which covers 43 categories from actors to technicians, raised $1million seed funding in October. It gets at least 250 sign-ups through Facebook every day and posts more than 50 jobs daily.
THE FUTURE
Ajay Shah, head of investment banking in media and entertainment at EY, estimates that the digital entertainment recruitment sector will be worth about Rs 6,000 crore by fiscal year 2018-19. Overall, India’s media and entertainment industry is estimated to be worth $20 billion and poised to touch $100 billion by 2025, according to a January report by FICCI Frames.
“It will take 3-5 years for the sector to develop and scale. It’s a niche industry but there is tremendous potential prevalent,” said Shah. “One is unlikely to see too many players emerging and coexisting but investor interest will come up… The focus or the pros for the industry will be the tech-enablement reducing audition or screening costs and enabling quicker exposure to fresh talent.”
Source: Economic Times
